Why is it so difficult to over come fear of the unknown?

because we are creatures of habit.

Evolution.

Eponymoushipster says it well and succinctly. Think of the known as a broad, groomed path through the woods—no underbrush, soft light filtering through the trees, etc.

Compared to that, the unknown is a jungle thicket that you must hack your way through. You can’t see whether there will be roots to trip you, thorns, poisonous beasties, etc.

It all adds up, I suspect, to a survival mechanism. A healthy fear of the unknown creates inborn caution when facing it—not a bad thing in actual exploration—less useful in our civilized world.

Each little segment of the unknown is different, and so our fear of it holds onto different justifications. So, even if we have already conquered some part of it, we still need to take the conquest of the remainder on a case-by-case basis, so our natural caution has no impulse to ebb away. The only way to get around this is by considering the entirety of the ‘unknown’ as one homogeneous mass, which probably isn’t very wise; it is, after all, unknown.

I don’t know.

ACK!

Precisely because it is unknown.

You can’t prepare for stuff you don’t know is coming. That’s why students hate pop quizzes so much.

I do not have physical fears, really. More mental fears.